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Tips to fix problems with Windows 8 not hibernating or sleeping when powered off

I notice Windows 8 sometimes wake up even when it is hibernated, and there is no power on which is weird since it is like an invisible person turned on your computer on it own.

Hibernate means Windows save background tasks and programs in your memory to a file on your hard drive in the hibernation file on your Windows hard drive.

This tutorial should also work for sleep and hibernate since they are both very similar except sleep turns everything off except for Memory, keyboard, mouse, and other things while hibernate turns everything off and saves your open programs to a hibernation file.

The easiest thing you can do to fix this problem on a desktop computer is to unplug your computer from the wall when your computer is hibernated. Many desktop computers have a power switch on the power supply which looks like a box which you can turn off as well. You can also turn off the power from the power bar, or wall  power outlet if your wall outlet have a power switch on it. There are also power plugs like the Belkin Conserve Power Switch  which lets you cut power to the outlet, so your computer can’t turn on by itself.

For laptops, it is more difficult to stop your laptop from waking up when hibernated, you need to remove the laptop battery, and unplug the charge/power adapter of your laptop from the wall.

Scheduled tasks may turn on your computer for scheduled tasks.

If you do not want to unplug your computer from the wall’s power or battery, you can check your scheduled tasks in Task Scheduler in Windows 8, and disable scheduled tasks you don’t need to run. Also, browse through the other scheduled tasks in the sub-folders of task scheduler to see if there are any scheduled tasks which may be starting up at times you hibernate your computer.

I read online at another computer blog that if you have Media Center installed in Windows 8 Pro,  it could make 8 wake up from hibernate if you have Media center updates turned on in Task Scheduler under Task Scheduler Library>Microsoft >Windows>Media Center>MCPupdate and mcupdate_scheduled  , so disabling the update tasks and other tasks in the Media Center folder may help solve your hibernation problem.

In the Action Center in Windows 8 System tray, you can turn off automatic maintenance, by clicking change maintenance settings once you launch the action setting by clicking on the flag icon on the system tray.

You can also change your power options in the control panel by going to the power options, and click change plan settings link for your selected power plan, and then click change advance plan settings and un-check the check box” which say “allow scheduled maintenance to wake up computer if it is plugged in at scheduled time”, and click ok at the bottom of the window.

Under the Sleep setting in Advance power settings, look for “Allow wake timers” , and set it to disable, and click the OK or apply button at the bottom of the window.

If you have Antivirus programs which update and scan your computer at a scheduled time, set your antivirus, and other security software like Antispyware, and Antimalware to scan and update when your computer when your computer is more likely to be on. You can also try disabling scheduled scans and updates in its settings, and run them manually once a day instead of having your security program automatically scan and update its software.

In Windows 7, I notice that sometimes third-party Antivirus programs like Avast, Avira, AVG, etc sometimes turn the computer on even if the PC  is hibernated or sleep. Sometimes, uninstalling and reinstalling the Antivirus fixes the problem, or you can switch to Microsoft Security Essentials which is called Windows Defender in Windows 8 which seem to not have a problem with the antivirus waking up your computer.  Panda Cloud Antivirus also seems to not have any problems with the antivirus waking up the computer from sleep or hibernate since Panda Cloud does not need updating since it uses the internet, and the free version does not have a virus scan scheduler.

A simpler thing you can do is turn off your antivirus before you sleep and hibernate your computer, and turn it back on after you wake up your computer from sleep. A lot of antivirus lets you turn off the antivirus in the system tray, and the antivirus settings.

If your computer still randomly wakes up from sleep or hibernate, press Windows Key + X , and pick Event Viewer near the top of the menu, and see if there are any events in Event viewer by browsing the Event Viewer logs inside event viewer to see if there are any scheduled events and tasks which are making your computer wake up at random times in the say.

Devices waking up your computer, and how to disable devices Waking computer in Device Manager

Sometimes devices like mouses, network adapters, keyboards, and USB devices may make a computer turn on by itself.

In Windows 8, Press down on the Windows + X key when in the desktop mode in 8, and pick Command Prompt (Admin) from the pop-up menu. You may need to press OK on a new window which launches.

Then type in powercfg lastwake in the command prompt to see if a device like keyboard or mouse woke up your computer when in sleep or hibernate.

If there are no devices listed, it means devices are not waking up your computer, and it is more likely a scheduled task from Task Scheduler or your other software waking up your PC/

If there is a device which woke up your computer from sleep or hibernate, you need to go to the device, and uncheck the “allow device to wake up computer checkbox” in the power management tab for the device, and press ok at the bottom of the window for the device.

You can open device manager in the control panel in Windows 8 by searching for Device managers in the settings search in Windows 8. You can also press Windows Key+R , and type devmgmt.msc into the textbox, and click OK.

The device manager has power management options for some of your devices like network adapters, keyboards, mouse, usb adapters, and more.  In the power management options tab for network adapters, keyboard, mouse, usb devices, and other input devices with power management tab there is a check box which say “allow device to wake computer” which you can uncheck, and click ok at the bottom of the device window, so the the device won’t wake up your computer from sleep or hibernate.  You can check all device in the device manager to see if it has the power management tab, and uncheck all device with “allow device wake computer” , so none of the devices installed in Windows will wake up your computer from sleep or hibernate.

Wake On LAN in CMOS/BIOS is enabled which is waking up your computer when another computer on your home network or internet is waking up your computer.

If your computer still wakes up from sleep, your BIOS may have a setting called “Wake on LAN” setting which is enabled which allows another computer on your computer network or the internet wake up your computer with the internet or home network. You would need to launch your BIOS setting during computer start up, and turn off “Wake on LAN” in the BIOS, and save your BIOS settings.

If you don’t use wired networking/internet, you can also disable the built-in LAN on your computer or laptop which also makes wake on LAN disabled, and may save you a little bit of power since the LAN/Wired internet/network port is disabled.

Unplugging your home computer from your wired internet network router, cable or DSL modem, or just unplugging your computer, router, and modem from the wall’s power should prevent your home network or the internet from waking up your computer, and you will also save a few dollars in electricity per year by not having your PC, router, and modem powered on when you are not using them. You can plug all your devices into one power/surge bar, and turn off the power bar’s power switch.

Other possible causes of your computer waking from sleep or hibernate

Maybe your computer hardware like the power switch, power supply, or motherboard is failing, and need to replace, or a virus, malware, or TV recording software if you have a TV tuner installed on your PC is making your computer wake from sleep.

Try shutting down the computer to see if it turns on by itself when it is off. If it is shutdown, and turns on by itself, it could mean the motherboard, power supply, power switch, etc, is not installed correctly or broken.

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